The alteration that immediately sticks out is that flash pods are being nerfed. These exploding projectiles can make fights against tougher monsters much easier, as a correctly placed flash pod can ground a flying enemy or stagger a beast so that you and your allies can go all-in.

With this update, flash pods will be less effective against tempered monsters. The more they're used during a fight, the more resistant the enemy will become, to the point where flash pods will have no effect. Yikes.

Fortunately, Capcom appears to be balancing this out by providing better tempered rewards. The notes say that rewards have been "reworked to provide better results".

We've included all of the major changes below, so do give them a read.

Monster Hunter: World update 3.0 patch notes

An Interface menu and an option called HUD/Help Text Size have been added under the Options menu on the title screen. You can now adjust HUD text size to be larger than the default size.
To go along with this new option, the "Subtitle Text Size" option added in PS4 Ver 2.00 has been moved from the in-game options menu to the title screen options menu.

A feature to sort investigations has been added to the Manage Investigations screen.

You can now sell all Trade-in Items at once when selling items.

Pressing the Square button on PS4 allows you to switch between the Decoration name and Skill name when setting decorations.

You can now preview armor at the Smithy even with Layered Armor equipped.

An update has been made to squad management so players who haven't logged in for 30 days aren't automatically kicked from the squad.

A tweak has been made so the camera is not forced to follow an active Scoutfly trail when fast traveling or returning to camp after fainting.

You can now cultivate Ivy at Botanical Research.

If a field researcher with important dialogue is present during an Expedition, an exclamation mark (!) will be displayed beside that character's name on the World Map when departing.

The Search Via Play History description text has been reworded to be easier to understand. The function itself has not changed.
Previous: Search for an Online Session that you joined based on your play history.
Now: Search for an Online Session based on your play history.
(Cannot find a previous met player if they've left the Online Session.)

Flash Pod effectiveness against Tempered Monsters will gradually decline after multiple uses, and will cease to have any effect at all after a certain point.

To coincide with the Tempered Monster's increased resistance to flash pods, the special rewards from Tempered Monster Investigations have been reworked to produce better results.
Threat Level 1 Special Rewards will now produce Warped Feystones.
Threat Level 2 Special Rewards will now produce Shining Streamstones.
Threat Level 3 Special Rewards will produce Shining Streamstones more frequently.

Update 3.0 also fixes a bunch of bugs. If you want all the details, be sure to click through to the official site.

What do you make of these changes? Stop relying on flash pods in the comments section below.

Robert's been a dedicated PlayStation fan since the days of Tekken 2, and he still loves a good dust up. When he's not practising combos, he's usually getting lost in the latest 100-hour RPG, or, y'know, replaying The Witcher 3.

@NathanUC I'm HR330 and still no Hero Streamstone for IG. It's almost like trying to get the Gjallarhorn during Destiny. That weapon took me five months to get. I've even gotten four attack decos already.

@WanderingBullet Dang that's hella unlucky. I'm in the 110s and already have 2 or 3 weapons of most types with Hero stone augs. Granted, I got most of them from the tempered pickle event that is going away

Can't say I ever used flash pods much as I had already noticed their diminishing returns in each battle (this already exists now), and even though they knocked some foes out of the air the effect was so short-lived to not be worth it in a long battle.